RICHFIELD, Utah (AP) — A heavy-lift helicopter helping battle a large Utah wildfire crashed Friday with no word on the conditions of the two people aboard as officials said they couldn’t immediately reach the crash site.
The helicopter was one of seven working a fire in central Utah that was caused by lightning on July 27. It crashed near Richfield, which is about 160 miles (258 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City, the Federal Aviation Administration said.Conditions were good enough for aircraft to fly when the helicopter crashed, said Tyler Hecht with the Great Basin Incident Management Team.The Sikorsky S-64 helicopter had been working in an area with steep terrain. It ignited another fire when it crashed. Hecht said at an afternoon press conference he did not know how long the helicopter was flying before it crashed.Response teams had not been able to get to the scene of the accident by Friday evening because of the flames, but hoped to get there in the next 24 hours, officials said.
“We didn’t want to put them at bigger risk,” Sevier County Sheriff Nathan Curtis said. “We’ll get them in there as soon as we can.”It was unknown if fire had overrun the crash scene, Hecht said.
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